Megan and I are both getting more parent-y by the second. We’ve already moved well beyond the not-being-grossed-out-by-bodily-excretions stage; most mealtime conversations revolve around what Hazel did or did not pass through her body that day. Hopefully, this is the only time in our lives that taking a massive poop at the dinner table qualifies as a witty rejoinder. Yesterday, Megan turned one more corner toward total parent-ness while making dinner. Looking out the window above the kitchen sink, she declared, “Those damn kids are in our yard again!” [Editor’s Note: She might not have cursed, but it makes a better story if she did.]

For privacy’s sake, our road name will heretofore be known as Awesome Land North. Awesome Land North is a quiet, little cul-de-sac running directly parallel to Awesome Land South, a down and out dead end. Our AL North backyard abuts (haha) the backyard of a nigh identical suburban plot of land over on AL South — a small expanse of trees and shrubs serves as a line of demarcation between us. Toward the back corner of our half-acre is a low spot where water collects, often cited by Megan as evidence that we own waterfront property. A gaggle of AL South elementary schoolers insist on playing in this muck, climbing on fallen trees and throwing around mud and rocks. They don’t do any real harm, but it bugs us to no end just the same. I’ve spoken with them a few times, asking them to not play in our yard but somehow, they always manage to wander back over, sometimes moving well past the “shoreline” to within an arms length of our home.

It just reminds me of a stereotypical neighborhood old man, shaking a liver-spotted fist at a group of giggling children who never retreat further than just beyond the reach of a garden hose spray. Add this to my getting up early at Big Dave’s Bachelor Party to turn off all the lights someone left on overnight, the white hairs that are threatening a coup by my left temple, my prideful obsession with the state of my lawn, and my honest enjoyment of picking up sticks in the yard after a good rainstorm, one starts to get a fairly focused profile of a cantankerous dad. I almost want Hazel to start dating just so I can dislike whomever she brings home.

Almost.

Major happenings within the Family Rags this week. To start with yours truly, I’ve been keeping my nose to the grindstone at work for the past week or so, preparing for a test run of potential new and interesting responsibilities. Earlier today, I facilitated my first solo seminar for work - not to go into deep detail (though I am happy to do so via email for those especially curious readers), but we provide consultancy services which involve philosophy, storytelling, words and their meaning, as well as entertaining a group of people for four to eight hours at a clip. It’s not exactly my dream job…

My dream job would be a superhero whose mild-mannered alter ego is that of a comic book artist who just so happens to captain his local Ultimate Frisbee team. Hey, it could happen!

…but it’s darn close and nailing the seminar today - which I did - has opened up several doors which have the promise of lifting Megan and I up a bit financially. Being a former English major, I never expected to earn much. So far, nearly ten years out of college, those expectations were met very readily and frugally. I’m not saying to take me Porsche shopping, but I just might be able to treat Megan and Hazel to ice cream with two kinds of sprinkles on top this summer. Stay tuned for more on this.

On the Hazel side of things, she said her first word today. Well, not exactly a real word, but she used speech to communicate a desire, and that counts in my book. Up until now, if she wanted something, she has grunted or whined while eying whatever her determined target might be. However, today Megan took Hazel to visit her great-grandparents. Not Hazel’s, these are Megan’s great-grandparents - well into their 90s and still with minds as sharp as anyones. Plus, they speak in that stereotypically New England way (like the “Pepperidge Farm remembers” guy) which I could listen to all day for a month without the awesomeness wearing thin. Anyway, following the visit, Megan had a long drive back home. Halfway through, Hazel started screaming. Unsure of whether she was just tired, feeling hungry, or sitting in a dirty diaper, Megan kept on driving in the hopes that the bumps in the road would soothe her off to sleep.

No such luck.

Eventually, the screams started mixing with one syllable repeated in groups of two: “Ba-ba.” This, apparently, is what Hazel calls her bottle of milk. Sure enough, when they got home and I brought Hazel in, she was muttering “ba-ba” between sobs and snorts. Megan readied the bottle and Hazel was overjoyed. She ate a bunch of ounces and felt right as rain after. Like I said, she didn’t use a real adult word, but she used a specific term for a real-life object, so it’s good enough for me. The English language rallies on!

Since having Hazel, I keep asking my mom what my first word was. Either she doesn’t remember or I keep forgetting her reply, but I have no idea if I was a “ba-ba” man or not. Given this autobiographical oversight, I now have to focus my energies on what my last word will be. I sure hope it isn’t “moist” - I’d hate to give Future Megan the jibblies.

Megan and her mother went down to Portland for a day of chain store shopping on Saturday, so Hazel and I had a whole day to ourselves. In between naps (hers, not mine), we read books, played with plush animals, and even took in “The New Yankee Workshop” AND “This Old House”. If there is a better formula for weekend fun, I have yet to pluck it from the ether.

Just after dusk, I packed up the daughter and headed north to my in-laws’ for pizza and to pick up Megan. As Hazel snoozed in her car seat, I was left alone with my thoughts on the 45-minute drive. Most of the trip takes place on Route One. Instead of the Boston-Post Road of my youth with its movie theaters, mall, and Milford Amusement Center (we’ve got the fun!), this stretch on the First Highway of America has woods, trees, forests, and a few stands of pine and spruce. During the brief mile or so through downtown Camden, I was treated to many houses and B&Bs aglow with the holiday spirit. Megan loves Christmas but I always rein her in with the amount of lights we string up each year. Being festive is one thing, being the house that puts Clark W. Griswold to shame is certainly another. However, I think I’ve found a solution in the vein of a five year plan.

The Five Year Plan: Megan and I are going to buy a bed-and-breakfast. Not only will this allow for Megan to decorate her little heart out with yuletide abandon, but this is a business that would make the most of her loves of home decorating, cooking for large groups of people, and designing graphic media in the way of advertisements and such on a year-round basis. Plus, we live in the perfect place for such a business, as folks from far and wide love to come to Midcoast Maine and will need a place to rest their fanny-packed patoots. And even though there are quite a few places with rooms to let in the area already, I’m sure our youthful outlook will stand out in a world of doilies, wallpaper, and mounted moose heads.

Which brings us to what to name our future inn? Not counting a play off of the street or neighborhood our future inn is built upon, the names fall into two distinct categories:
Names Megan Has “Taken Under Advisement”/Suggested Herself:

• The Sleeping Inn
• The Stay Inn
• The All Join Inn
• Reynard’s Roost

Names Megan Would Bludgeon Me With If They Were Corporeal 

• The Seroton Inn
• Original’s Inn
• The Millennium Falk Inn

The last one is a name I think we can really make work in a deceptively dorky way. If the name is changed to the Mill Falc Inn, we can say that the building used to be a granary or something. Or, with the name Mlle. Faulk Inn, our business becomes surrounded in the colorful history of Mademoiselle Faulk, a French dignitary whose emigration to New England immediately following that unpleasant incident with the orangutan caused quite the stir among her fellow Parisian aristocrats. 

Additional names are welcome. Also, should anyone have the urge to own a stake of a soon-to-be successful hospitality venture, this five year plan could be moved up to three.

A fear that all dads must share is knowing that, before they know it, their kid will bring home that first boyfriend or girlfriend. Growing up is an odd time that dirves us to make similarly odd choices – in the bands we like, the clothes we wear, the things we will or will not eat, and the people we choose to enter with into social relationships. I still get a chill running down my spine when my mind wanders to Kris Kross, Zubaz pants, tubes of cookie dough, or any of the girls I dated in high school. And I know that eventually, Hazel will start hanging out with some “friend” in as little as a dozen years; a person that I am going to have to be nice to while knowing full well what teenagers do with each other. Yuck.

Hopefully, regardless of Hazel’s future sexual orientation, she never brings home anyone like Eric Byrnes. Last night, the Arizona D’backs left fielder provided what can be loosely categorized as commentary before Game 2 of the World Series. To be fair, he may have given some solid analysis of the game (doubtfully), but I was too distracted by his tousled appearance. As he let forth a slew of zingers and wacky one-liners, all I could contemplate was how extreme and bodacious he truly is because what else could he be with such a tousled hairstyle. Yes, much like how each hair on his steadily balding head goes its own way, omnidirectionally, so too does Byrnes live a lifestyle that can only be described as non-non-non-non-non-heinous.

Perhaps this is just petty jealousy talking, for I could never pull off the tousled look. Even when I muss my hair with wild abandon, it’s so thick and wiry that the hair reconstitutes like a dark brown T1000, collecting into a brunette helmet of puffy, unmanageable hair. The best I could do to rally against the world using my scalp would be an emulation of Che Guevara, but berets are so last season. Although, a dude walking down the street with a full beard and a beehive coif sprayed up a yard above his head could cause quite the stir.

The question is: where could I find cat eye spectacles with bedazzled accents deep in the heart of Midcoast Maine?

A few days ago, as I motored through the Rockwellian wonder that is a New England autumn, an equally classic and poignant scene caught my eye. Along the roadside, a father was teaching his five- or six-year-old daughter to ride a bike. Pink and white streamers fluttering from the handlebars, the dad was pushing the girl’s bicycle along at a good clip, shouting out encouraging words to her with each footfall. His face was exuberant in a way that I hope I will be when I teach Hazel to pedal her first Schwinn (Huffy? Recommendations?). However, I cannot comment on the girl’s visage as sometime between the start of the lesson and when I saw the pair, her helmet had slid down her head and affixed itself firmly over her face, like a hockey mask. It could have been that she is just really psyched to be Jason Voorhees for Halloween, but I’d sooner chalk this one up to an overzealous yet oblivious dad.

I don’t think I’ll wind up like this guy, rocketing my daughter down a bumpy road while she’s blinded by a bike helmet, but I do see myself daily obstinately sticking to my Parental Plan A when Plan B would work so much better. If I’m rocking her to sleep, and she’s wriggling and fussy, I stay the course and rock the rocking chair more fervently in an effort to “wear her down” rather than just standing up to rock her or seeing if she wants more bottle. Like famed general, president, and drunk Ulysses S. Grant, I have leadership tunnel vision, and I’ll be damned if I’ll show any weakness in shifting gears, even if I have to send soldier after soldier into enemy fire - metaphysically speaking of course.

So if you ever see Future John running along, pushing Future Hazel on a bike while she is suffering from helmet failure, assume I have altitude sickness (very likely since I live at sea level) and knock me out.

Against all supportive parental urges, I have to confide in you, Internet, that Hazel doesn’t know very much. She’s a sweet kid and all, but she doesn’t know any of the state capitals or how to find the area of a triangle. I doubt that she would stand much chance of doing well on the painfully easy yet more painfully painful “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” It’s not her fault - she’s nigh three months old.

However, I know with all certainty that the time will come when I will need her help with some electronic gizmo. The Me of the Future will be scratching his gray-haired head (or graying depending on how quickly technology continues to change), baffled on how to operate some basic household technology. It’s just the way things go. For example, at work, I am often tapped to help with computer errors or printer malfunctions. The asker always cites the fact that I’m a “young person who has a knack for this new technology” as if my age is a prerequisite for electronic and information systems know-how. And I realize that, by this statement, I am painted with the same brush used for teenagers born when I was in middle school. It seems preposterous that any member of a generation just 15 years older than I is confident that, because I’m under 35, I automatically know how to fix their computer, digital camera, or iPod. Don’t think it me a genius when someone is stumped on how to change the way Word looks on their laptop and I whiz in making the magical suggestion to check the “View” menu.

It’s enough to get one quite haughty, but I try and temper these feelings, knowing full well that I will be baffled by my car’s sound system in the coming years. I have to stay on Hazel’s good side, so that she can guide me through the hover conversion of my old road auto. Without those servos installed properly, I’ll never make it to the bank before they close to withdraw grocery money from the nice teller I always go to; after all, I have no clue how to use those new fangled cash machines and the Hannaford doesn’t take paper checks anymore. And, dagnabbit, I need me some Soylent Green!